Whether you’re sitting in your office chatting with your fellow agents about what’s new under the sun, driving buyers to a home inspection, or listing a family farm – embarrassing moments happen sometimes.  In my *ahem* several decades of experience and wisdom, I have learned the best thing to do when you do something embarrassing is either 1) Apologize, or 2) Laugh.

Sharkables offers other advice in the Office Survival Tip series,

The absolute worst way to handle any embarrassing moment is to pretend it didn’t happen. While I admire your dedication to your powers of self-persuasion, no one else is fooled into believing you didn’t just eat it on the stairs when you oh so cleverly hop up and keep walking like nothing happened.

No, you need to approach embarrassing moments head on. I know it sounds cheesy, but the best way to take the social sting out of any embarrassing situation is to start it off by laughing yourself.

I profoundly believe a little self-deprecation can actually help someone climb the well-liked ladder. Laugh!

One of my most difficult clients was also one of my favorite. She looked at about 120 houses over a six month period – sometimes taking a couple of weeks off – before she found her perfect home.  I was encouraged several times to cut my losses (gas money, time spent), but I just enjoyed her company too much to do this.

Had it been anyone else, I would’ve followed the advise of Jennifer Fivelsdal of Rhinebeck, New York and avoided the trap of too many showings.

With a need assessment in hand your agent will then be able to setup searches for you that closely fit your needs. Working together you both can further narrow the list. With the help of virtual tours and video you can get a feel for the properties these two tools further help you both to be even more selective.

Be honest about what you want, what you need.  Know that you may have to sacrifice something so be prepared not to get every single thing you want.

Foreclosed homes in Las Vegas have a new use for enterprising criminals – growth rooms for pot.  Empty houses are the newest prey for scammers, thieves, and – now – pot growers.

According to zillow.com,

In one raid, Vegas police discovered 61 plants in a recently foreclosed four-bedroom home. In another, they confiscated 878 plants worth approximately $2.6 million. The budding trend’s growth coincides with the city’s wildly speculative housing boom and subsequent bust. In 2005, when home prices were still rising, there were 18 recorded pot sites and 1,000 confiscated plants in the state. In 2010, police raided 153 indoor operations and nabbed 13,000 plants, according to the [Los Angeles] Times.

Before we bought our home, the house across the street was rented and converted into a growing house. It was nearly destroyed by the water in the hydroponic set-up. It’s not very fun telling oldtimers of my city that I live “across the street from the pot house.”

Photo by John Pavelka.

A cozy (small) home with WB FP.  White bannister fenced pool? Of course it’s a wood burning fireplace, but real estate agents often get too comfortable in their use of acronyms that they forget maybe not everyone knows the “lingo.”  Alisha Alway Braatz writes about how complacent agents become when describing homes in this Inman News article,

And then there are your old standards: “turnkey,” “good bones,” “great potential” — gag me.

Please, if you use these phrases in your listings, you deserve a good lashing. But instead of retiring them, we add to the list of gag-me words until we have a whole paragraph of meaninglessness: “HOLY COW! Look no further!!! This Tuscan Old World home features cathedral-vaulted ceilings, a designer color-palette, gourmet kitchen and a park-like yard. Turnkey and ready for move-in today!”

How many real estate listings in your area read exactly like this?

It’s better we should just start using real words with real meanings.

Of course, the challenge is when an agent writes a description of a home for the multiple listing service (MLS), they are limited by the number of characters allowed.  When you have a gorgeous mansion-like house with all kinds of upgrades, how do describe it in 300 characters?  Creatively of course!  Agents have to describe the best features first, then use photo captions to get the rest of the upgrades. Then take advantage of video or slide shows and put in an external link to a virtual tour.  It can be done.  Again – creatively.

A friend of mine once listed a house that had at least three ghosts confirmed to be in residence.  The owner had gone to a cemetery and invited any spirits who wanted to come home with him and from that night forward, the ghosts were there.

Two children, one adult.  The kids would laugh and move the rocking chairs upstairs.  The adult was downstairs, with the presence usually just a chill or a shadow.

To market the house when it went up for sale, the agent put together a wonderful brochure that was sure to appeal to ghost-hunters everywhere.  Instead of being shy about the ghosts, they made it into a vital part of the marketing plan – and had TONS of nibbles!

Another agent faced selling a house with the street number 666.  A lot of people have an aversion to that number – to the point that they would run before even looking at the house.  The ingenious Alaskan agent simply contacted the city and asked them to change the numbers.  Being very understanding of the situation, the city happily complied.

The lesson here is when there is a stigma on a house, good agents will do their best to solve the problem.  If it is a tough one to solve, then good luck to everyone involved!

Photo by Caleb Roenigk.

I always have a very difficult time saying “No” to potential business opportunities. It may be the eternal optimist in me thinking, “Well maybe it will work!”  Typically, however, this is only if a price is $2000 to $5000 off the price at which a home should be listed.  Franklin, Tennessee real estate agent Tammie White writes a great explanation about when an agent should turn down a listing,

Since I had just been in the other homes the day before, I knew her home had no additional features to justify her price. And because the floor plan was a less desirable plan, the best thing to do was price it less than her current competition.

After showing her all the recent comparable homes and even showing her photos of these homes with my iPad, it was clear she was not going to price the home right. I apologized for taking up her time and said there really wasn’t anything further to discuss.

Tammie did not want to spend her time and money to market a home that was priced unrealistically.  This is a sound business decision on her part and I applaud her for the strength to say no!

Even with national housing statistics so grim, there are some pockets of sunshine.  MSNBC has named the 10 cities that have the fewest homes underwater,

It appears the only places that managed to survive this crisis were those that were suffering economically at the time when people were building and buying new homes. These cities, which include Rochester, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh, were in many cases former industrial powerhouses that have been steadily losing jobs for the past 40 years. In these regions, home values remained stable during the crisis and relatively few risky mortgages were taken out on new homes.

There are several cities that might surprise you!  Aloha!

I am always so careful about cleaning my car when I am showing clients houses.  It is mortifying when I get “surprise” showings and my dashboard is dusty (which it happens to be very much so right now).  That’s why I completely understood when Wanda Kubat-Nerdin said on her blog that riding dirty can cost you business,

Soda cans, fast food bags, old newspapers, candy wrappers and sticky suckers have a place and it’s called a garbage can, not the interior of your car. During our weekly Board Tour meeting an agent stood up and told everyone how he has gained other people’s clients because their car was filthy and unkempt. I can believe it!

I have a dear friend who is a smoker so she does not like riding with me when we go somewhere (no smoking in my car). However, the other day she INSISTED upon driving.  I was adamantly opposed to it because her car was so filled with stuff that my knees nearly touched my chin.  We finally compromised for her to clean out the passenger side and I’d ride with her.  Cleaning 1/4 of her car (not the back, not the trunk) FILLED one big black garbage bag!  I love my friend, but if I had an agent who did that – forget it.

I am a member of a local task force that focuses on foreclosure prevention. Our little group sponsored a workshop last weekend, reaching out to people who were in trouble with their mortgage due to unemployment or underemployment.

We were astounded when more than 50 people came to the first workshop.  These families are receiving hardest hit funds (relief on mortgage payments) and / or one-on-one assistance with loan modifications.  In fact, Bank of America representatives were on hand to help those who had mortgages with them.  We have another workshop planned in December where Wells Fargo will be there to help customers.

If you live in one of 18 states, there may be help available for you to save your house from foreclosure. According to Daily Finance,

… a huge number of homeowners still stand to benefit and potentially keep homes they would otherwise have lost. Michigan projects it will help 17,000 homeowners with these funds; Arizona estimates that these programs will help over 8,000 homeowners. As we know, though, federal foreclosure-prevention programs have a history of overestimating how helpful they will be, due mostly to the banks’ failure to play ball when their participation is required (as with the principal reduction programs).

The site has links to the states with programs and you can typically pre-qualify online.

I actually sold a home once at an open house. I’ve also fed people cookies, talked with neighborhood kids, enjoyed sitting in the sun on the front porch, worked on marketing literature, and surfed the internet.  Camille Victour has another suggestion for buyers visiting at open houses – interview the realtor!

As you tour the home, it’s nice to build a rapport with the agent hosting the open house.  Some agents are quiet and passive while you tour the home, and some dog your every step pointing out the obvious in a non-stop barrage of comments.  Notice what questions they ask you and be honest in answering.  When you find someone you think you could click with, find out what they like to do with their free time and see if there is a common bond of some sort.  Could be sports, kids, school affiliations, pets, or anything.  Then you can ask some questions about their professional approach to real estate.

Outstanding idea!  Visit Camille’s post to see some of the questions you should ask when interviewing an agent to work with.